January 08, 2010

New Republican Edges Toward AG Run

Chapman University School of Law Dean John Eastman will “likely” throw his hat into the Republican primary, according to the conservative FlashReport blog. The item did not cite any sources, and an Eastman aide at Chapman said this afternoon that the dean was out of the office and unavailable for comment.

Rumors have also swirled that Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley will soon jump into the Republican race, though he has refused to confirm this publicly.

Harman, an Orange County state senator, has already sewn up a slew of endorsements. But his early fundraising numbers were so-so. Other prominent Republican attorneys have declined to run, citing the difficulty raising enough money to beat a Democrat in a Blue State.

Eastman is the founding director of the Claremont Institute’s Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, a public interest law firm that, among other things, sued the Legislature earlier this year to block a tax hike that was ultimately vetoed by the governor. He also authored an amicus brief (.pdf) in support of Proposition 8.

Eastman earned his J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School in 1997 and clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.